Voice Therapy For Transgender Essay

1200 words - 5 pages

VOICE THERAPY FOR TRANSGENDERVoice Therapy for Transgender/Transexual Most people have never even heard of voice therapy in the transgender arena or really in most other areas as well. This is a new area in Speech Language Pathology and is up and coming because of the recent evidence involved that has proven the effectiveness of its results.So what is voice therapy for transgender? First we must try to think about the differences in men vs women in regards to areas of voice, language, and nonverbal communication. There are many differences in communication and the individual needs to really define communication in regards to men vs women in evidence based case studies.Some target areas might be included for voice therapy for transgender: • Pitch- Pitch can be defined as the high or low tones in the sound. While having a higher pitch is usually associated with feminine voice; this area has been proven in some studies to not be as important with some women to create a more positive perception of a more feminized voice. The clinician usually tries to raise the pitch to be gender appropriate in regards to create a healthy and realistic/consistent perception for the client while maintaining a healthy laryngeal mechanism. • Resonance- So, what is resonance? Resonance is typical of being defined as how the different cavities of the vocal areas are either being vibrated/amplified to change the sound to your own unique quality. These different vocal areas are called "resonators", and are the mouth, throat, chest, and nasal cavities. While trying to work with the resonators one can decrease/increase the power of their voice by training their ability to work with vocal resonance. It is worth noting, that these vocal resonators are anatomical areas which cannot be changed unless by surgical means. These areas have been used in the singing industry for a sufficient amount of time. One example, of using the resonator as one aspect of tg therapy is to bring the focus of the voice more up into the upper head area versus the chest in order to lessen the deeper chest resonation. Many areas are used in voice therapy for the transgendered client but the ability to learn this technique of feminine resonance has been one of the harder areas for the client. It has been quoted as " hearing the voice" ( Miller 1996 ), as well as the ability to feel the vibrations. • Intonation (the rhythm of speech)- As said earlier, pitch and intonation are one of the final goals in maintaining the client's own positive perception of their speech. However, one must consider that intonation is mostly perceived equally in both genders. Intonation is the melody and rising and falling of the message of the speaker, which can alter the meaning of the delivery. While also, adding more impact and other areas of "maybe" gender qualities to the listener. Intonation and pitch can be part of the same goal in certain instances. There is evidence that...

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